For most of the fifteenth century, the Epiphany was celebrated in Florence
with a great festival. Expensively clad citizens reenacted the journey of
the three kings to Bethlehem with processions through the streets. Shortly
before this work was painted, however, the elaborate pageantry of the
festival was curtailed. Preachers like Savonarola complained that
excessive luxury obscured the day's religious significance.

Botticelli's painting seems to reflect this new concern. He places Jesus
at the center of a powerful X formed by the opposing triangles of kneeling
worshipers and the roof of the manger. The viewer, rather than being
overwhelmed by rich detail, is instead aware of the quiet distance between
him and the holy figures—and like the worshipers in the painting leans
toward the infant. This yearning to close the gap between human existence
and the divine was a frequent Neoplatonic theme.

Botticelli may have painted this while in Rome working on the Sistine
Chapel. Rearing horses in the background, for example, appear to reflect
the colossal horses of the Dioscuri. The classical architecture of the
manger and the crumbling ruins also have theological
significance. Legend held that earthquakes destroyed pagan temples at the
moment Christ was born, and in a more general sense ruins suggest that the
old order of the Law of Moses is supplanted by the new era of Grace made possible by
Christ's birth.